Noam Chomsky Quotes

The decline of the trade union is to some extent inevitable and irreversible.

Less than 8 percent of private sector workers belonged to a union in 2004, and, overall, only 12.5 percent of American workers carry a union card - down from about one-third of workers in labor's heydays in the 1950s.

There may be here and there a worker who for certain reasons unexplainable to us does not join a union of labor. That is his right. It is his legal right, no matter how morally wrong he may be.

Well, we see an increasingly weaker labor movement as a result of the overall assault on the labor movement and as a result of the globalization of capital.

Private sector labors unions continue to suffer losses in their membership while public sector and service unions grow.

Republicans are always much more supportive of unions in Poland than they are of unions in the United States.

The strongest form of fight against the capitalist class is the strike. Strikes are necessary, ever again, against the capitalists’ tendency to increase their profits by lowering wages and increase the hours or the intensity of work.

We back Solidarity [the Polish trade union], and bust our unions.

The history of all countries shows that, by its own efforts, the working class can develop only a trade-union consciousness—that is, the realization of the need of getting together in unions in order to fight employers and to demand from the government the passing of laws necessary for the workers.

The New Deal Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act which granted unrestricted sovereign power to the barons of union labor.

The labor movement was a reaction to capitalism.

“Right to Work” is wrong for Kentucky. It’s just another word for union busting...

Many people have mixed views about unions, but unions used to give people some measure of control at work. They gave them a social life and political representation in Washington, which doesn't really exist anymore.

I am a huge believer in organized labor. Period. Full stop.

I'm pro Union.

I've been reading a lot about Silicon Valley history recently and was struck by just how core the lack of unions has been to the American tech industry's evolution. It's enabled the constant creative destruction that keeps Silicon Valley relevant and thriving in a rapidly changing world.

By the mid-1950s, more than a third of all America workers in the private sector were unionized. And the unions demanded and received a fair slice of the American pie.

This is the crux of the problem: because the Republicans and the right wing have been successful in almost eliminating unions, everyone else has suffered as a result.

It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.

Make no mistake about it! There is an organized movement against organized labor and it's called the Bush Administration.

I would say the issue for the labor movement in the United States is not structural... there is no correlation between the success of workers and how the labor movement is structured.

I'm a lifelong believer in trade unionism.

Working people are under the worst attack in 80 years. Never has there been a stronger need for a stronger union movement.

The unions claim the deck is stacked against them when it comes to labor laws, but the truth is many private and public sector workers are forced to pay union dues as a condition of their employment, yet they have little say in how the unions spend their money.

I'm a big believer in the value of labor unions and with what collective effort gets people.